Sparky's Lab: Scanner salvage!

I picked up this functional scanner (and a bunch of other stuff) from my friendly neighborhood computer independent for just a couple bucks. What goodies await us inside?

Getting DOWN to bizness!

So, of course the first thing I do is open the cover...

Hey! It's the useless drivers! First thing in the bin.

Flipping the thing over we find a metal panel with four screws. Removing it revealed this:

On the left, the yellow board is the voltage regulator. It has two regulators, a 7805 5v, and a 7812 12v. They run the 16v 900mah D/C into something usable. The rest of the board is a combination of communication, motor control, and image handlers. Goodies!

Both boards were held down with a set of chicago screws, which I am keeping! Can't have too many, right? After disconnecting the various cables from their headers, I found separating the base from the rest of the housing to be simple. Just slipped a small flathead into the notch at the front and POP! Way too easy, makes me wonder if these things had a habit of falling apart.

The top housing had only the glass, and the array for the "On" button. Grabbed the array. Smashed the glass. (DESTRUCTION!!!) Btw: Do you see the black strip with the white "Morse Code" on it? Not being a scanner repair guy, I can only assume that is some register for the image interpreter to know when it should send a stop command to the motor drivers. Nifty! Gives me an idea... Later.

Ah! Belt and roller! And a little belt-tensioner. Awesome! Of course, one of the things I hoped to get out of this: a stepper motor and gear box. I also want that rail.

The holy grail of scanner rip-ups! A lovely florescent tube and inverter circuit! Gonna do something with that. EL wire variable driver, maybe?

So, I (carefully) ripped the top off the light and camera carriage (sounds like a portable movie crew) so now I have a tube holder, and box with the imager and mirrors.

The back of said box has a board with a charge couple device in a linear fashion on it. Now, that idea I mentioned earlier seems more possible. I was inspired by the "Morse Code" stopper signal on the bottom of the glass and it reminded me of a barcode. Could I make a ccd barcode reader from this? Let's find out later.

There is a lens that supposedly forms the longer image plane onto the much smaller ccd. Just a set screw holding it in.

Also, the three double sided mirrors can be seen vaguely on the left photo. Not sure if I have a specific project idea in mind, but they can't be useless to a scrounger, right?

So, here is the little lens removed. I normally love optics, but this doesn't actually appear to be terribly useful. There is little magnification, and the focal plane is about an inch in front of it. As you can see from the two pics of the driver board below, there isn't a lot of help. They were taken at the same distance in the same light. One with lens, one without. Might be a spare focus lens for my Webcam Microscope.

So, I want these little brass bushings as they are a perfect fit for the rail that I ripped out. However, they are pressure fit tightly into the bottom of the mirror housing. Figured I might as well Dremel the whole thing, and take it as a single piece.

Didn't work.